


Without A Quicker Blood

by SinkingCanoe (CavalryofWoah)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And this is barely scratching the surface, Angst, Arguing, Brotp does not mean never arguing, But if u wanna ignore that and mentally replace her pronouns with any it's cool, But it's brief and only Matt's crush is clear, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, I mean the adopted bit isn't clear, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Listen i have strong feelings about Keith and Pidge's fight over her gping to rescue her family, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant, Pidge gets mean when she's sad, Quick mention of Matt/Shiro, That sucky feel when nobody is right and the grown up answer is messy and hard and you still hATE it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalryofWoah/pseuds/SinkingCanoe
Summary: “I… maybe. But Shiro would understand why I couldn’t leave to go after him,” Keith says defensively.“Shiro might understand, Keith. But Matt won’t.” Pidge rests her elbows on her knees, head in her hands. “My brother isn’t like yours.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've only seen this show once, I wrote this on my phone at midnight, and I really should've been asleep a few hours ago.  
> Be gentle, is all I'm saying.  
> Title is from the first two lines of a Dickenson poem,  
> "I never hear the word "escape"  
> without a quicker blood."

“C’mon, keep up!” Keith taunts, advancing.

Pidge pants, desperately raising her shield against his relentless offence. She’s past the point of snapping that she’s trying; she is, and Keith knows it. He just ranks trying below succeeding.

Keith laughs at her visible frustration, landing a solid hit to her shield that rattles her left arm. “You’re supposed to be the shield arm of Voltron and you can’t even hold _me_ off! Focus!”

“I _am_ ,” Pidge growls, dodging down and around him to get some breathing room--last time she let him back her into a wall it ended… badly. She is focused, though. As focused as her multitasking brain is capable of.

“You _aren’t_ ,” Keith snaps, finally losing his own temper. “You’re thinking of like three different things, not including your family. You need to be _here!_ ”

Pidge forces forward, slamming her shield against his sword near the wrist, nearly parting Keith from it. “I’m here, okay! I! Am! Here! I thought that’s what you wanted!”

“I don’t mean in this room, Pidge,” Keith snarls, renewing his assault. His wrist is shaky, though; her reckless anger did some good. “I don’t even mean this castle. I mean _here,_  with us, in the _moment_. Your head is always off somewhere else!”

“That’s--that’s not true!” Pidge jumps back, barely evading his blade. She’s off-balance, physically and emotionally. The conversation has so quickly gotten away from her.

“It is! You can’t keep up if you’re always trying to go in your own direction. We’re a _team!”_

She growls, incensed. “You’re one to talk about being a _team._  You only follow the plan when it’s convenient for you. You’d leave us all behind in a second and you expect us to do the same thing!”

For once Keith is the one stumbling back, wounded. Pidge barely has time for a brief flash of guilt before he’s coming back, even angrier.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’d ruin everything for the sake of a few people! Priorities are important, but you act like some people are _more_ important than others just because you care about them!”

“I’m not going to abandon people who count on me! I promised I’d help them--I’m not going to break that promise the minute it becomes _inconvenient!"_

“You can’t abandon Voltron the minute it becomes inconvenient either! _We_ count on you!”

“I _know_ that!” Pidge shouts, unfocused and so, so angry. She’s so tired of being frustrated and off-balance and upset.

Keith finally lands a hit so harsh that Pidge’s exhausted muscles and slowing footwork can’t keep up, strong despite his weakened wrist, and he knocks her to the ground. The room echoes with the harsh _crack_ of her helmet hitting the smooth metal. Alteans apparently didn’t believe in sensible things, like seatbelts, and _oh shit_ bars, and padded training rooms.

She rolls over quickly, staring at the floor through burning eyes as she tries to scramble up. Keith watches her struggle, impassive but for the look in his eyes. Anger, but beneath it the fire came from desperation.

“I know that,” Pidge repeats weakly, wiping at her eyes from behind her helmet’s visor. “Why do you think I’m so _torn?!”_

Keith hesitates, shoulders slumping when she turns to look at him. He didn’t mean for this to happen; he’s already won this argument, as much as it can be won, and they try to dance around their perpetually different motivations because there’s no real, good answer.

“I--I know, Pidge,” he mutters, uncomfortable. They’re not much for emotional conversations, and the last thing he wants is for her to cry, or be mad at him, or… it was just supposed to be training as the sword-and-shield-arms. He doesn’t know how they got to this again. “I know this is hard for you, but--”

“You don’t know what this is like, Keith, don’t pretend you do. Don’t pretend that if Shiro hadn’t crash-landed back in your life you wouldn’t have spent every second in this castle trying to find him,” Pidge exhales, bitter but too exhausted to rage again.

“I… maybe. But Shiro would understand why I couldn’t leave to go after him,” Keith says defensively.

“Shiro might understand, Keith. But Matt won’t.” Pidge rests her elbows on her knees, head in her hands. “My brother isn’t like yours.”

Keith sputters. “Shiro isn’t--we’re not--!”

Pidge glances up just enough to give him a look, like, _really?_

“...how’d you figure it out?”

“Matt had the _biggest_ crush on Shiro during the Kerberos prep. Couldn’t stop talking about how tall and smart he was, how cute it was that Shiro never stopped rambling about his younger brother. Shiro bragged about you all the time, I guess. Best fighter pilot in the whole Garrison.” Pidge shrugs, picking at the armor on her thighs.

Keith sighs and sits down next to her, looking at his own hands to avoid her eyes. The feet between them felt like light years. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah,” she replies. “I figured.”

“Pidge, I’m… I’m sorry,” he starts, unsure how he’s going to finish. “I just can’t--”

“You can’t let me off the hook just ‘cause my life sucks. I get it. Any hesitation on my part could get us all killed. _I get it_ . But, fuck, Keith. That doesn’t mean I can just _forget them_. Every time I try I feel even guiltier. If it was me, would they give up? Would they wait? Would they move on like I never mattered at all?”

Keith lets the ensuing silence stand; he’s never known the right thing to say, and now is no exception. He can’t understand--he can sympathize but he can’t actually fix a damn thing. They’re both right and they’re both unhappy and they can’t seem to get past it, despite all this time. The time passing, in fact, seems to make it even worse.

Pidge chafes even harder at the bit, always wanting to go further, go faster, do _more_. Always on the edge of her seat for the big break or the other shoe to drop, every second wound even tighter in anxious anticipation.

And she’s not wrong. Keith would love to tell her she is, but she isn’t. The only person he ever cared about came back alive and brought Keith to space with him. He got his big rescue reunion, and his welcome-back hug, and his older brother sleeps two doors down and is always there when Keith feels comfortable enough to admit he needs him. And even when he doesn’t.

And Shiro survived the Galra; he fought, and he lived, and he escaped. Shiro himself doubted Matt Holt’s ability to do the same so much he took his crewmate out of commission rather than force him to try. That doesn’t spell good things for Matt’s chances at surviving even the Galra mining camps, and every day the likelihood that both he and Pidge’s father are alive gets lower.

Eventually, Pidge clenches her fidgeting hands into fists and stands, looking away. Keith doesn’t turn to watch her leave, but somehow the clack of her boots on the floor leaves him feeling even colder than witnessing it would have.

She pauses at the door, he can tell from the sound of its releasing seal and the following silence, and Keith imagines the bowed shoulders and the fear in her eyes to go with her cutting voice. “Sometimes I think you would, y’know. Without me, without any of us, you’d just go on with the mission like we never mattered.”

Keith jerks his head around, stunned. She’s still turned away, so he can’t see her face and she doesn’t have to look at the effect her words have on him. “I _wouldn’t!_ ”

Pidge breathes against the doorframe for a moment. “I want to believe you. But that’s exactly what you’re asking _me_ to do.”

She finishes her exit before he can figure out how to reply, leaving Keith with the nagging thought that even if she’s wrong about him, he’s somehow enough of a jerk that Pidge thinks she’s right.


End file.
